Adapting to a Changing Environment surfaced locally-driven, nature-based solutions that are helping communities adapt to the impacts of climate change. This contest drew 88 submissions from 37 countries, many of which included powerful ideas and detailed accounts of how community-implemented adaptation strategies and succeeding in protecting biodiversity and enhancing livelihoods while also confronting the effects of a changing climate.

The contest looked for adaptation strategies that:

Use biodiversity and ecosystem services of forest, wetland, or coastal, margin systems as part of an overall adaptation strategy to help people and communities adapt to the negative effects of climage change.

Decrease the dependence on the consumptive use of resources and/or improve the ability of the community to cope with loss or changes in vulnerable resources.

All entries will be submitted through the Solution Search website. Entries will then go through a three-tiered judging process and finalists will be announced for the public to vote for the winner. First, a panel from within the Rare and The Nature Conservancy’s staff will narrow the total pool of entries to 30. Next, a select group of expert judges will select 10 finalists and one of the grand prize winners. Then the public selects the second grand prize winner and two runner-ups. All applicants will be ranked throughout the process in the following criteria.